Design and Development of FoodGo: A Mobile Application using Situated Analytics to Augment Product Information

Abstract

Situated analytics (SA), a combination of augmented reality and visual analytics, is a potential tool in enhancing user understanding of information. This study created a mobile application (app) named FoodGo, which utilizes SA to present product information in mobile devices, to help consumers in making a food choice in a grocery shopping scenario. FoodGo was designed in such a way that users just need to scan the barcode of a food product using the smartphone’s camera and the helpful food information will then be augmented in the smartphone display using the concept of situated analytics. An iterative process of design analysis, prototype development, and user interface evaluation was used in designing and developing the mobile app prototype. The iterative process was limited to three iterations only and the data gathered in each iteration was used to improve the mobile app in the succeeding iterations. After the iteration cycles, the final version of the Android FoodGo mobile app was developed and was ensured that all the components, which includes the barcode scanning and the cloud database, were working properly. The effectiveness of using the mobile app in helping consumers make a healthier food choice was assessed in a mock-up grocery shopping environment. The result indicated that using FoodGo significantly improves the success rate of users to select a healthier food product. Further improvements for the FoodGo mobile app include putting a tutorial on how to use the mobile app when opened for the first time and having an option to input special health conditions such as diabetes for a more personalized way of informing the user about the food products.